In recent years, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies have emerged as a fast-growing market. Among the various WLAN technologies, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard is the dominating technology and is frequently used for WLANs.
Client devices within WLANs communicate with access points to obtain access to one or more network resources. Access points are digital devices that may be communicatively coupled to one or more networks (e.g., Internet, an intranet, etc.). Access points may be directly connected to the one or more networks or connected via a controller. An access point, as referred to herein, may include a Wireless Access Point (WAP) that communicates wirelessly with devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or related standards and that communicates with a wired network. A WAP may include a mesh point or mesh portal.
Access points generally accept connection requests from client devices that provide the correct security credentials (for example, a password associated with a Basic Service Set Identification (BSSID) identifying a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) that is supported by the access point).
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.